SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 122, NUMBER 5
IN THIS ISSUE
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT As Amazon workers
prepare to vote union, Joe Biden weighs in | Page 2
MASS RESIGNATION ENDS NURSING HOME STRIKE
Springfield workers walk after 23 residents die | Page 3
Meeting Notices p.4
Annual strike report p.8
PORTLAND, OREGON
MARCH 5, 2021
THE YEAR OF COVID
For the hardest hit workers,
unions made a difference.
By Don McIntosh
March 11 will mark one year
since COVID-19 was officially
declared a global pandemic. As
with everything else, the pan-
demic hit the local union move-
ment highly unevenly. Union
office workers in public em-
ployment learned to work from
home. Oregon construction
union members masked up, san-
itized, and kept working while
social distancing. Several
unions even grew. United Food
and Commercial Workers
(UFCW) Local 555 added
nearly 4,000 members amid a
boom in the grocery industry—
while campaigning for hazard
pay and the right to workers’
compensation benefits for gro-
cery workers who contract
COVID-19. And a stay-at-home
boom in home remodels
boosted demand for lumber and
created 100 new union jobs in
Weyerhaeuser sawmills. But
other union communities expe-
rienced job loss. A severe drop
in air travel contributed to the
layoff of roughly 450 union Ma-
chinists at Boeing in Gresham.
And for several entertainment
unions, the pandemic meant
near-total loss of employment.
For them, the coronavirus has
been a struggle for survival, and
a testament to union solidarity.
‘Frozen’ in place
Locally, the hardest hit union
was likely 231-member IATSE
Local 28, which represents the-
atrical riggers, stagehands and
other theater professionals.
When the pandemic hit, the
Disney musical Frozen was less
than half-way through a two
week run at Portland’s Keller
Auditorium. Behind locked
doors, the show’s elaborate set
spent the rest of the year
“frozen” in place on stage.
Meanwhile, at the Moda Center,
IATSE riggers had just finished
loading out props after a March
11 concert by the metal band
Tool, for transportation to the
Turn to Page 7
Union leaders invited to the Oval Office
Every other Saturday, two or three dozen out-of-work stagehands in IATSE
Local 28 come together outside the union’s office at the Oregon Labor Center
in Southeast Portland to receive donated food and household supplies. On
Feb. 27, the array ranging from fresh produce to Hershey’s Kisses is overseen
by Local 28 Good and Welfare Committee member Laura Fraley, above. Fra-
ley was working at the prop shop of the Portland Opera when the pandemic
hit; her last day of work was March 13, 2020. Local 28 member Liz
Spottswood says the event doesn’t just help members stretch their grocery
budgets; it’s also a chance to catch up with coworkers at a time of isolation.
Workers at Grand Central Baking
ratify their first union contract
The wholesale bakery will pay
overtime after 8.5 hours and
raise wages 8% over three years.
Continuing a string of pro-labor
moves, Biden named a top NLRB
official and reversed Trump’s
“IRAP” apprenticeships.
By Don McIntosh
President Joe Biden invited 10
top union leaders to the White
House Feb. 17 for a meeting
alongside Vice President Ka-
mala Harris to talk about
COVID relief and his plans to
create manufacturing and clean
energy jobs.
“The middle class built this
country, and labor built the
middle class,” Biden said in
front of cameras before the pri-
vate meeting began.
AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka later called it the most
productive Oval Office meet-
ing for working people in
years. The White House meet-
ing coincided with several pro-
union announcements, the lat-
est in a string of overtures to
America’s labor movement.
One was that Biden will
nominate Jennifer Abruzzo to
serve as general counsel of the
National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB). The NLRB is
an independent federal agency
that administers union elections
and investigates employer
abuses of workers’ union
rights. Its general counsel is
kind of like the agency’s top
prosecutor and is the person in
charge of nearly all NLRB
staff. Biden earlier made waves
when — within hours of being
sworn in — he fired Trump-ap-
pointed general counsel Peter
Robb, nine months before
Robb’s term was set to expire.
Unlike Robb, who was a man-
agement-side labor lawyer,
Abruzzo is a career NLRB
lawyer who is seen as pro-
union. A former deputy general
Turn to Page 2
Workers at Grand Central Bak-
ing’s Northwest Portland whole-
sale bakery ratified their first
ever union contract March 1 af-
ter more than a year of negotia-
tions and 14 months after they
voted to join Bakers Local 114.
The agreement includes an
immediate 1.25% raise plus
three annual raises of 2.25% on
July 1 of 2021, 2022, and 2023.
It also mandates overtime pay
for any hours over 8.5 worked in
a day. [A state law requires time-
and-a-half pay in manufacturing
jobs after 10 hours in a day, and
Local 114’s contract with Franz
Bakery provides it after 7.5
hours.] The contract also lays out
a clear wage progression: At the
outset, pay for new hires starts at
$17 an hour and rises to $18.25
an hour 180 days later; lead bak-
ers will make $21.79.
The agreement replaces “at
will” employment status with a
“just cause” disciplinary process
that includes a grievance pro-
cess to challenge unjustified dis-
cipline. And a labor-manage-
ment committee composed of
shop stewards, managers and
union reps will address persist-
ent concerns about sexual ha-
rassment in the workplace.
Company-provided health in-
surance remains the same, as
does the company’s no-match
401(k) retirement savings plan.
The vote came a month after
workers voted to reject an ear-
lier tentative agreement. After
the two sides returned to bar-
gaining, Grand Central in-
creased its proposed annual
raises by 0.25%.
The contract vote took place
at the International Longshore
and Warehouse Union Local 40
hall one block from the bakery.
When Grand Central’s
wholesale bakery unionized in a
29-to-9 vote December 2019, it
employed 44 workers, but the
pandemic cut back operations at
the company’s neighborhood
cafes, and sales dropped about
20%. About a third of the work-
ers left or were laid off; 31 re-
main.
The new contract runs
through June 30, 2024.
–DM